The latest rumour around the block is that Daniel Day Lewis must clearly be up for a part in the new Star Wars film because El Mayimbe from Latino Review tweeted that he was spotted having lunch with Kathleen Kennedy and George Lucas.
That must automatically mean he’s going to be in Star Wars, right? Well, I’ve avoided reporting on this story because, as much as I’d like to see Daniel Day Lewis in a Star Wars film, I’m just not sure that’s in the cards. I think he’d do it, it would present him an interesting challenge to bring the high art world to the world of popcorn films, but I think I’ve hit upon a much more compelling theory.
Lucas said he was going to spend his retirement working on his art films, right? Well, Daniel Day Lewis has worked with all the other great filmmakers of that generation, from Martin Scorsese to Steven Spielberg. And half of directing is picking the right cast for the project, right? What if D-Day is going to George Lucas’ first art house film since THX-1138? Remember how incredible Donald Pleasance and Robert Duvall were in that movie?
The thought of them teaming together for a film of such scale is thrilling to me.
Or maybe even a better theory than that? Maybe they were just having lunch.
The next bit of rumour mongering is actually something we addressed, courtesy of the master Rumour Controlling of Bobby Roberts, on the Full of Sith podcast. A month ago.
Furious Fanboys is reporting (with no source whatsoever) that Ben Kingsley is going to be in Episode VII. I love Ben Kingsley. I loved him in Disney’s Iron Man 3 and I can’t wait to see him in Ender’s Game.
Aside from people needing to not report on this because there simply is no source.
My guess is that the source for this is what we discussed on that episode of Full of Sith. In late August a big scoop about casting was allegedly leaked to a whole bunch of the movie sites. And no one ran with it. None of the sites that got the scoop felt that it really passed the smell test.
There was chatter online that the official Star Wars website might be making an announcement any moment after that. It never happened and no one really ran with the story.
The names of people getting hired, allegedly, were: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams, Ben Kingsley.
All of the film bloggers, us included, sat on the story, waiting for that announcement because there was no reason to believe or disbeleive the story. We recorded the episode discussing this issue on that Saturday for a release on that Monday, which was labor day. Which is the day sites started running with the Benedict Cumberbatch rumour. Perhaps it proved to enticing. And then we were all assaulted with two weeks of bad photoshop jobs of Cumberbatch as Thrawn.
Was LFL and Disney testing for leaks? I have no idea.
But we told you a month ago this was bunk. At the moment, it still smells like bunk.
Chances are: it’s all bunk.
Remember, tune into Big Shiny Robot! and Full of Sith for the most down to the Earth and careful Star Wars reporting on the Internet.